This invention relates to the intravenous admininstration of multiple fluids.
There are many medical applications for which an intravenous infusion for a multiplicity of fluid solutions can be beneficial. One such application is chemotherapy infusions used in cancer treatment. This was recognized in the recent 13th Annual Cancer Course, given Mar. 1-3, 1984, by the Harvard Medical School and New England Deaconess Hospital. In the syllabus article entitled "Multi-Drug Infusion Chemotherapy: the Delivery of Two or More Drugs Simultaneously", Dr. Jacob J. Lokich described techniques for mixing drug solutions to form a combination which can be delivered to a patient by continuous intravenous infusion. The use of combination multi-drug chemotherapy has been developing in medicine since the 1960's. It has been used for such diseases as acute leukemia, Hodgkins disease, lung cancer, breast cancer and ovarian cancer. Unfortunately, there are only a limited number of drug combinations which have been found to be compatible and stable and which can produce a synergistic effect when administered.
There are many drugs which may not be used simultaneously because of reactions between the drugs which make infusion impracticable or undesirable. Some drugs react and thereby neutralize one another. Other drugs react to form precipitates which may clog the catheter tubing or even worse cause an embolism in the patient. Thus, according to present multi-drug combination treatments, physicians are limited in their choice of drug solutions.